Wonderful Sagacity
Newspapers mention that an Irish crow has lately arrived as a passenger on board the steamship Colorado. It is stated that the bird has positively declined to quit the ship, and the inference is that its unwillingness to do so arises from fear lest it might be mistaken for a Thanksgiving Turkey.
A Wintry Reflection
The only Weather Profits that never fail are the gains of the coal dealers.
Nautical
When does a ship display a propensity for climbing?
When she runs up her flag.
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS
Latest of Mr. BOUCICAULT'S mixtures is another Irish dramatic stew. He calls it the Rapparee, and it contains the usual proportion of fire, patriots, whiskey, traitors, pretty girls, and red-coat officers. It has a Tragic Heroine and a Cheerful Heroine, a French Officer who speaks with an Irish brogue, and a Dutch General who speaks the Fechterian dialect. It has FRANK MAYO in picturesque attitudes on the stage, and HARRY PALMER in gorgeous vestments in the lobby. But here it is—as long as the original and nearly as tedious. Read it and decide for yourselves whether this sort of thing is worthy of the clever mechanic who constructed Arrah-na-Pogue?
THE RAPPAREE. ACT I
SCENE I.—A retired spot in the public highway. [Enter an army of fifteen
Irish patriots, armed with pikes of great scythes.]
1st PATRIOT.—"Hurroo for KING JAMES, we'll dhrive the Orange-men into the say. Here comes O'MALLEY, and the FRINCH OFFICIR. May they niver want a bottle, or a frind to stale it from." [Enter O'Malley and Duquesne,]
O'MALLEY.—"All is lost. ULICK has betrayed us."
DUQUESNE.—"All is lost. ULICK has followed the national custom."
PATRIOTS.—"All is lost. Hurroo. What'll we do now, boys?"
O'MALLEY.—"Come with me to France. We'll fight somebody there."
PATRIOTS.—"We will go this minute." [They go. Enter Tragic Heroine.]
O'MALLEY.—"Can I belave the eyes of me. Is it you, darlint, or some other ghost?"
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"'Tis I. Fly, O'MALLEY. ULICK insists upon marrying me, and hanging you."
O'MALLEY.—"I will fly to-morrow night, and you shall fly with me. I would go this minute, were it not that Mr. BOUCICAULT'S play would be spoiled if I did not stay long enough to get into difficulties. I will hide in the cellar of my ruined castle, and will give ULICK the worst 'hiding' he ever had if I have a convenient chance at him."
SCENE II—The front parlor in O'Hara's castle. Enter the Dutch General and O'Hara
DUTCH GENERAL.—"O'HARA, I dinks you pe ein repel. ULICK is searging your bapers. If he finds something you shall be hanged." [Enter Ulick.]
ULICK.—"I have searched O'HARA's trunk, and the drawer where he keeps his other stocking. I have found nothing."
DUTCH GENERAL.—"I still pelieve him a traitor, but I gannot brove it." [Exit.]
ULICK.—"O'HARA, listen. I have lied. I hold here in my left coat-tail pocket the proofs of your treachery. Give me your daughter and help me hang O'MALLEY, or I will ruin you."
O'HARA.—"I am in your power. Do as you please." [Enter Tragic Heroine.]
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"Never. ULICK shall neither marry me nor hang O'MALLEY."
ULICK.—"Young woman, I will lock you in this room for a year or two, until O'MALLEY is thoroughly hung. Come, O'HARA." [Exeunt.]
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"I must escape and warn O'MALLEY. But how? I have it. I can leap out of the window into the sea: I can then swim in full ball-dress to O'MALLEY'S castle, which is only twenty leagues from here. I will warn him, and fly with him. Courage. I will remove my back-hair and make the hazardous leap." [She leaps.]
SCENE III.—The vaults below O'Malley's castle. Enter Dutch General,
O'Hara, Ulick, and the "Doctor," a rebel prisoner
DOCTOR.—"I brought you here to show you O'MALLEY'S hiding-place. Now I've got you. The tide rose the moment we entered, and cut off your retreat; we'll all be drowned like rats in a hole. Hurroo." [O'Malley descends into the vaults by an iron door.]
O'MALLEY.—"Come up-stairs out of the wet. We'll have some whiskey." [They come up.]
ACT II
SCENE I.—O'Malley's ancestral back-garret. Enter Tragic Heroine in ball-dress, having swum across the bay
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"Ha! also Ho! I am a little out of breath. I think I had better faint." (Faints.) [Enter O'Malley and his rescued enemies.]
O'MALLEY.—"Sit down, while I go for the whiskey." [He goes.]
O'HARA.—"What do I see? My daughter! Take her up-stairs before O'MALLEY returns." (They take her up.) [Re-enter O'Malley.]
O'MALLEY.—"Gentlemen, here is the whiskey. It is Gen. GRANT'S favorite brand, and you'll find it all right." [To his servant] "CONNER, these men mean to arrest me. Go and set fire to the castle." [Connor goes, and O'Malley, locking the door, throws the key out of the window.]
EVERYBODY.—"What do you mean by throwing away the key? Do you mean to surround us, and, making us prisoners, drink up the whiskey yourself?"
O'MALLEY,—"'Tis a custom of our house, intended originally to give employment to meritorious locksmiths on the eve of election. Listen while I tell you how one of my ancestors played a nice little trick on some officers who had come to arrest him for shooting his landlord. He locked them up as I have locked you up. He then ordered his servant to set the castle on fire as I have just done, and was baked with them as we are about to be baked."
DUTCH GENERAL.—"Donner und blitzen!"
EVERYBODY ELSE.—"Tare an ounds!"
TRAGIC HEROINE, [in the loft above].—"S c r r r e e e c h."
O'MALLEY.—"Heavings! That shriek. 'Tis my Grace! TRAGIC DARLING, I come to die with you." [Rushes up the chimney, while the Dutch General, blowing off the lock off the door with his pistol, escapes together with his friends. The Castle is carefully taken to pieces in sections by the stage carpenters, while torches are flashed at intervals. Finally a Roman candle is set off, and the O'Malley Castle falls a prey to a carefully managed conflagration.—Curtain.]
ACT III
SCENE I.—A quiet place in midst of the turnpike. Enter Cheerful Heroine and French Officer
FRENCH OFFICER.—"Fly with me at once."
CHEERFUL HEROINE.—"Why on earth should I fly? I have never seen you but once."
FRENCH OFFICER.—"'Tis true; but you'll have to settle that with BOUCICAULT. I'm sure I don't want you to fly, especially with no property but a low-necked dress and short sleeves; but BOUCICAULT has arranged it to suit himself."
CHEERFUL HEROINE—"In that case I will fly." [Enter the DOCTOR and a band of patriots.]
DOCTOR.—"O'MALLEY is a prisoner in the fort. We are going to have him out, dead or alive."
FRENCH OFFICER.—"These are the counsels of madness. Why don't you get an injunction, or something of that kind, and so get him out peaceably."
DOCTOR.—"It's too late. Besides, Mr. BOUCICAULT wants to end the play with a fight."
CHEERFUL HEROINE.—"I will manage it all. I will let down a rope from the fort. You shall all be drawn up and rescue O'MALLEY. Nothing could be more simple. Come and be drawn up." [They come.]
SCENE. II.—Interior of the O'Malley's cell. Enter Tragic Heroine
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"'Tis he!'tis he! Though how he managed to change his clothes and put on such a nice coat, I can't imagine. Dearest, awake!"
O'MALLEY.—"Who calls? Is it the boy with the beer? Ha! my own darling. Come to this embroidered waistcoat."
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"I have agreed to marry ULICK on condition he permits you to escape."
O'MALLEY.—"Ha! base girl. Would ye onconvenience yourself to save me? Never! I will not consent to your marrying ULICK. Try some other little game, darlint"
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"I will." [Exit.]
SCENE III.—The castle moat. O'Malley in the ditch standing in a picturesque attitude
The Dutch General stands on the summit of a wall three feet high, and leaning over
the battlements—which tower to the height of three inches—hands
O'Malley a pardon. Enter Tragic Heroine and everybody else
TRAGIC HEROINE.—"O'MALLEY. I have saved you. Now save me. I have just married ULICK. Kill him for me."
ULICK and O'MALLEY accordingly slash each other across the legs with their rapiers. O'MALLEY kills ULICK and embraces the TRAGIC HEROINE. Everybody shouts "Hurroo!" and the curtain falls.
MATADOR.
Эта и ещё 2 книги за 399 ₽